Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa has won a second and final term in office after getting 52.6 percent of the vote compared with 44 percent for Nelson Chamisa in the August 23 presidential elections.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) announced the results of elections on Saturday night.
Mnangagwa received more than 2.3 million votes while Chamisa of the Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC) took 1.9 million, according to the ZEC.
The electoral added that voter turnout in the country of almost 16 million was 69%.
However, aspokesperson for the CCC, Promise Mkwananzi, told the AFP news agency that the CCC did not sign the “false” final tally and “cannot accept the results”.
He said the party would announce its next move soon.
He also posted on X that the party rejected “any result hastily assembled without proper verification”.
Observer missions from the EU, Commonwealth and 16-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) said they had a number of concerns with the vote, including the banning of opposition rallies, issues with the electoral register, biased state media coverage and voter intimidation.
“The elections were fraught with irregularities and aggrieved the people of Zimbabwe,” political analyst Rejoice Ngwenya told AFP.
Al Jazeera reported that Mnangagwa, who took over from longtime leader Robert Mugabe after a 2017 army coup, was widely expected to secure re-election despite the country’s continuing economic crisis, with analysts saying the contest was heavily skewed in favour of the Zanu-PF party, which has ruled the country since independence and the end of white minority rule in 1980.
Zanu-PF has ruled Zimbabwe for 43 years, since the country gained independence from British rule in 1980.
The ruling party was also declared the winner in the parliamentary race, securing 136 of 210 seats, with the CCC taking 73. A further 60 seats are reserved for women and are appointed through proportional representation.
